


Inevitable

by DancerInTheShadows



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dead Dean Winchester, Dead Sam Winchester, Depressed Dean Winchester, Emotionally Hurt Dean Winchester, F/M, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, Post s5 Apocalypse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-14
Updated: 2018-10-14
Packaged: 2019-08-02 01:45:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,355
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16295924
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DancerInTheShadows/pseuds/DancerInTheShadows
Summary: She’d always known, somewhere in the back of her mind, that he was going to leave her. She’d known it, known it from the moment he fell through that same door and into her arms. Oh, she’d told herself, that second year when everything seemed to be settling down, that they had something good, something that no one could walk away from. She’d told herself that no one would leave this kind of life, but she’d known.She’d always known.





	Inevitable

Lisa Braeden, heart in her throat, whipped the door open only to find an unfamiliar blond woman in a sheriff’s uniform staring at her with an odd expression. First the woman tried to smile, but it fell away, then came back as a melancholy half-smile that dissolved into a sigh.

“Oh, hell. I hate this part.” She pulled out a police badge, the yellowy metal glinting in the early-morning light. “ Sheriff Donna Hanscum, from Stillwater, Minnesota. Are you Lisa Braeden?”

“Yes. What’s this about?” She already knows.

“I regret to inform you that your husband is dead.”

\-----

She’d always known, somewhere in the back of her mind, that he was going to leave her. She’d known it, _known_ it from the moment he fell through that same door and into her arms. Oh, she’d told herself, that second year when everything seemed to be settling down, that they had something good, something that no one could walk away from. She’d told herself that no one would leave this kind of life, but she’d known.

She’d always known.

\-----

Ben came clattering down the stairs at her call. He’d grown up tall and looking even more like his father than ever, broad-shouldered and freckle-faced. His little sister came toddling down the stairs after him, dark brown hair in its perpetual messy state.

“Mom? What’s going on?” He glanced at Donna, who turned to look at him and tried to smile again. It broke before she even made it all the way, slipping into another chesty sigh.

“This your son?”

“Yes, this is Ben, and the little girl is Mary. Ben, say hi to Donna.”

“Hi,” he said, while giving her that look that meant _you’re treating me like a little kid again, Mom._ She didn’t care. She needed her baby back right now.

“Can I get you anything? Tea, coffee? I think we’ve even got some eggnog left over from Christmas, but it might not be much good-” She’s babbling, she knows, but she can’t help it.

“No, thanks. I’m good.” Donna cuts her off smoothly, and she’s grateful. The sheriff, plump and blonde and capable-looking, gestures to the living room. “We should talk.”

\-----

He’d always been reckless. Driving in the rain at night, walking through that one part of town, always taking the most dangerous jobs at the construction sites with only the bare minimum of safeguards. She’d told herself that he was used to world-ending dangers, that the dangers a small town like Cicero offered barely paled in comparison, that he was too good at what he did to get hurt by them. And she’d almost believed it.

But he’d always been reckless.

\-----

They were all settled in the den, Donna in the armchair he’d liked, Lisa and Ben on the sofa with little Mary, too young to understand, sandwiched between them. Her round little face, with hazel fox-eyes, stared up at them and over at Donna. The sheriff stared at the carpet like it was the most interesting thing she’d seen all week.

Lisa stayed silent, before turning to Ben. He looked at her, unsure, afraid. Her baby. _His_ son.

“Ben, sweetie. I need to tell you something.”

“Mom?”

“Your. . . It’s Dean. He’s-” Her throat closes up before she can get the worlds out, and she’s crying as the reality hits her, gross, messy sobs that start in her gut and roll up over and out of her throat like broken glass. She’s vaguely aware of Donna telling Ben “Your father’s dead. I’m sorry, kid," and Ben’s choked gasp before he’s wrapped around her like a little octopus, like he used to do when he was younger, when he was just a baby, when she thought she’d never see his father again and was less okay with that than she’d pretended.

It feels like a long time before she’s presentable enough to pull Mary onto her lap and look in Donna’s general direction. She can’t meet the policewoman’s eyes. Not now.

“What. . . How did it happen?”

\-----

After she’d gotten pregnant, he’d asked to get married, and she’d gladly consented. She would’ve asked sooner, but she was afraid she’d drive him away.

When the girl was born, she’d named her Mary, after a childhood friend, and Samantha, after his brother.

Mary Samantha Winchester. He’d smiled that her with tears in his eyes and two nights after that had gone out and gotten blackout drunk. He’d loved the girl, he really had, but he chafed against the responsibility, against this one more link in the chain that was holding him here.

You couldn’t hold a man like that.

\-----

Donna looked at her steadily for a while before sighing. “Hell. I hate this.” She paused before restarting, words hesitant and careful, clinical. “Three nights ago, your husband was found in a barn covered in symbols of the occult, with several other dead bodies. Eyewitness testimony reports that he ‘saved’ multiple captives in the barn from something ‘inhuman’. One woman in particular referred to him as a ‘hero’, mentioning that he died to save them, that he sacrificed himself to save them.“

It’s what he would do. Of course it’s what he would do.

\-----

He drank too much, and don’t think she didn’t see the cache of guns he kept in the trunk of that old car. He ignored her attempts to help for days on end, sometimes, and he almost killed himself with drink on an monthly basis.

But he loved Ben, and he loved little Mary Samantha even more. And he tried, he really did, to be a good father and a good husband and a good man.

But she’d always known that it could never last.

\-----

“He died a hero. They all said so. Said that he stabbed a black-eyed _thing_ and set them all free, called the police to get them out before he died of a stab wound to the gut. He saved them, he really did. And I know that’s not exactly comforting, but it’s something, at least? Damn it, I hate this. I’m sorry, Mrs. Braeden, I really am. I’ve lost people myself, and it gets easier. I swear it does.”

Lisa looked up at her and tried to smile. It wouldn’t come.

“Thank you, Sheriff, Hanscum, but if there isn’t anything else you need from me, I think you should. . . you should-” the old painful sobs start up again, and she only just manages to keep them back, even though it feels like swallowing razor blades.

“Of. . . of course. If there’s anything I can do, just, you know. . . call. Stillwater Sheriff’s Department, that’s me.” She smiled one last time, a horribly _fake_ smile, and left. The door swung closed with a final-sounding _click_.

Ben leaned against her, and she buried her face in his shoulder.

She’d never told Dean that he was Ben’s father. After denying it that first time around, she’d just never managed to talk herself into telling him. And it didn’t seem to matter in how much he loved the boy.

But now he’d never know.

\-----

He’d never loved her with his whole heart, no matter how much she deluded herself about it, no matter how much she told herself that he’d get over it in time and love her.

But one year had passed, and another and they had a child, and he still flinched when she said his name, ended up dead drunk weekly, turned away from Mary with her sweet slanted hazel eyes that looked exactly, _exactly_ like Sam's. Still stared at his phone, the number listed under “Bobby” in his contacts before turning away and facing the wall while she rubbed his shoulder.

He still screamed his brother’s name in the middle of the night.

He’d always known that Sam would call him back to the road, back to hunting and the life. She’d always known that he’d go out and find his brother again, in the passenger seat of the Impala, in the glint of light on blade.

In the pain and release of death.

She’d always known that she would lose him. It had been inevitable

And she’d loved him anyways.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading this. As always, comments and kudos are more than welcome.


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